Shut In
by Narr the grey
Summary: Naota stays locked up in his room now, just watching the world through his window go on without him. Until someone comes and helps him. Kind of generic romance but I think it's okay.


Hey. I am going to try to write a fooly coolly or whatever you want to call it fan fiction. Haruko fans turn back now, she's not coming back. I don't know where I'll go with this, possibly just an angst one-shot, or possibly a multi chapter romance/angst. You can leave what you want in a review.  
  
Disclaimer: insert insult to whoever is reading this here.  
  
Naota Nandaba had become a shut-in. He didn't do anything extremely drastic about Haruko and a very strange, very large chapter of his life leaving, but he couldn't quite get on with life. Through his window he could see cars, people, and the changing seasons, all moving on without him. It made him realize that after all of that, he actually wasn't a key part of the world. Sure, he stopped a force from destroying the planet, but maybe people do stuff like that all the time, all over the world.  
  
The bakery kept itself up without Naota, mostly because of Canti. Somehow, a bakery run by a robot garnered a lot of business. Before he shut himself in his room for months, Naota tried returning to school and his friends. But before the teacher even talked, Naota already knew the answer to the question. He couldn't explain it. Telekinesis maybe, or some other weird thing only explainable in his world.  
  
As for the guitars, Naota noticed as Haruko was leaving, on the back of her vespa was his guitar, the one he pulled out of his head, and the one that belonged to Atomsk put together. She either seemed to think that it was an even trade for her guitar and his, or she just realized that his guitar was much more powerful, and just took it. Or maybe she was going to do what he had often considered doing for her. Maybe she was going to return Atomsk's guitar to him.  
  
But the blue bass guitar Haruko had left him never left his room again. In the first few months, Naota had kept it in the corner of his room next to the window. But he couldn't stand looking at it. It robbed him of his sleep at night, just standing there, something phenomenal, something amazing just standing there amongst everything else normal. Just like she used to do. Eventually, he gathered up enough strength, and put it in his closet, to rot away with his childhood and all the memories he had gathered of her.  
  
Eri had tried to get him out of his rut. She had visited him a few times. The first times when he was extremely silent she would yell at him and scold him about everything that he did and didn't do now. But eventually, she saw that he really was in deep emotional pain, and the anger in her eyes eventually turned to pity, and sadness that her best and only friend now wasted his life away.  
  
Mamimi sent letters every now and then. Naota's father just felt like leaving him alone to settle his problems with himself, but whenever Mamimi sent a letter, Kamon would slide it under the door and wait to hear Naota getting off his bed to pick up the letter. Her letters told him of everything she had been doing, and she sent a few pictures to him before she even sent them to the magazine she worked for. Naota did enjoy reading the letters. He knew Mamimi didn't want anything to do with Mabase, so he was grateful she still made contact with him.  
  
Naota had spent about six months doing nothing but staying in his room, barely eating what Kamon brought up to his door step for dinner. Eri quickly became his only connection with the outside world. She barely spoke, and when she did it was what she and all his old friends had been doing, but it never inspired much conversation. He would only say a few words to her, but she hung on every word he ever said.  
  
She would just sit on his bed with him, staring at the floor, glancing at him occasionally. She broke into tears more than once when she was sitting with him, but the dead look on his face would never change, whether it rained or snowed outside, whether she smiled or cried.  
  
But one day, Eri finally couldn't take it anymore. When she was sitting there with Naota, she broke into a stream of tears. She had finally realized that she truly had feelings for him, but he was dead to the world. This wasn't like when she spent the night with him and she held his hand. She realized she really did love him, and she was torn that nothing she did could bring him out of this daze he was in.  
  
She laid her head on his shoulder, and sobbed for close to two hours before she finally got up the courage to speak through the tears.  
  
"Naota, are you ever going to say anything, or go outside your room? I can't get past my feelings for you, but every time I see you like this it hurts so much. Will you ever feel the same way I do about you, or be happy again?", Eri said as she continued crying on Naotas's shoulder.  
  
"Eri", Naota said, speaking for the first time in nearly two months.  
  
"Yes", Eri said, excited to hear his voice, even though she was still crying.  
  
"Thanks. For getting me through this", Naota said, as he laid his head on hers.  
  
Eri stopped crying then, and got more comfortable with her head on Naota's shoulder, and they stayed that way for hours, until they realized that the sun was setting, and Eri finally spoke.  
  
"It's getting late. I need to get on my way home", she said.  
  
"Can I come?", asked Naota, slightly shocking Eri.  
  
"Sure", she answered after a few seconds glad he was willing to get back into the real world after six long months.  
  
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There you go. My first romance/angst story. Kind of generic romance, but I'm new at this. Give me a break. If you want it continued, I could, or if you want it left as it is, I could do that as well. Leave a review telling what you think and if I should continue or not. 


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